This is a companion volume to Viral Infections of Humans: Epidemiology and Control. The apparent success of that book in bridging the gap between texts on basic microbiology and those on clinical infectious diseases led to editing this one on bacterial infections, the chapters of which are organized in exactly the same format of 12 units: introduction, historical background, methodology, biological characteristics of the organism, descriptive epidemiology, mechanisms and routes of transmission, pathogenesis and im- munity, patterns of host response, control and prevention, unresolved...